Category Archives: Culture

Dear author, you are wrong about the United States. There is no Freedom of Choice or any real freedoms in the United States. It is impossible to implement any political ideas. All we have is consumerism. People are only free in as much as they buy, sell and consume goods and services.

Consumerism is first and foremost the freedom to choose goods and services! In other words, consumerism is part and parcel of overall Freedom of Choice and therefore, we aren’t talking here about the complete lack of Freedom of Choice that exists or existed in places such as North Korea, Cuba and the Soviet Union

But consumerism is only one aspect of Freedom of Choice and can even be successfully implemented independently of general Freedom of Choice, as it was, for example, in Chile during Pinochet’s dictatorship, in South Korea during the reign of dictator Park Chung Hee, and as it is in modern Communist China.

To claim that there is no Freedom of Choice in the United States is to completely ignore the fact that one half of the American population is locked in “battle” with the other, for and against Trump. If that is not Freedom of Choice to express your opinion about the future running the United States, then what is?

If Trump does finally succeed in crushing the free press and dispersing the independent justice system, I wonder what you would have to say about the United States then?

But that will never happen. The best and most proactive portion of the American population wants to preserve its Freedom of Choice and has absolutely no intention of parting with more than two centuries of democratic history just like that.

In his novel, ‘East of Eden’, John Steinbeck discovered that in the biblical parable of Cain and Abel the words which God is supposed to have spoken to Cain after he had murdered his brother, are different in British and American translations of the Bible to the original Hebrew. What is a small difference in translation actually implies a huge difference in the meaning of God’s words particularly with regard to Freedom of Choice.

In the English King James edition God’s words sound like a prediction: ‘Thou shalt rule over him’ (You will rule over sin) which would appear to mean that the men can go freely about their lives, knowing that the feeling of sin will be overcome automatically.

In the American Standard translation, God’s words sound like an order: ‘Do Thou rule over him’ (Rule over sin), which would appear to mean that men are obliged to obey God without a murmur of doubt.

Only in the original Hebrew version, by saying: ‘Thou mayest rule over him’ (You may rule over sin), do God gives man the freedom to make the difficult choice, whether to fight against sin or not! With just one Hebrew word ‘timshel’ (‘Thou mayest’) God communicates to man, that he always has Freedom of Choice.

Steinbeck writes:

Lee’s hand shook as he filled the delicate cups. He drank his down in one gulp. “Don’t you see?” he cried. “The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’ Don’t you see?”

“Yes, I see. I do see. But you do not believe this is divine law. Why do you feel its importance?”

“Ah!” said Lee. “I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long time. I even anticipated your questions and I am well prepared. Any writing which has influenced the thinking and the lives of innumerable people is important. Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But ‘Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.” Lee’s voice was a chant of triumph.

Adam said, “Do you believe that, Lee?”

“Yes, I do. Yes, I do. It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, ‘I couldn’t help it; the way was set.’ But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There’s no godliness there. And do you know, those old gentlemen who were sliding gently down to death are too interested to die now?”

Adam said, “Do you mean these Chinese men believe the Old Testament?”

Lee said, “These old men believe a true story, and they know a true story when they hear it. They are critics of truth. They know that these sixteen verses are a history of humankind in any age or culture or race. They do not believe a man writes fifteen and three-quarter verses of truth and tells a lie with one verb. Confucius tells men how they should live to have good and successful lives. But this—this is a ladder to climb to the stars.” Lee’s eyes shone. “You can never lose that. It cuts the feet from under weakness and cowardliness and laziness.”

In robbing their own people, corrupt presidents, ministers and officials are fulfilling the instinct of gene preservation which is inherent in human nature, i.e. they are taking care of their own children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. It is reasonable to appeal to the conscience of corrupt officials and to dream of having honest political leaders?

I would answer directly and without hesitation: No! It is not reasonable!

In developing countries there exists the widespread misconception that the low levels of corruption that exist in highly developed democratic countries is down to the greater honesty of the ruling elite. I am sorry to have to disappoint you but even in countries with a developed democracy, the gene preservation instinct functions in just the same way as it does in more backward countries. You only have to look at some of the most recent examples:

As soon as sales dropped in the business belonging to the daughter of America’s newly elected president Donald Trump, the President used his official account to protect her business, and his official Counsellor Kellyanne Conway in an attempt to gain the favour of her boss, openly advertised Trump’s daughter’s company products on national television.

French presidential candidate Francois Fillon is accused of embezzling public funds during his time as member of parliament and minister ‘illegally’ paying large sums of money to his wife and children;

Vice-president of Samsung, Lee Jae-Yong, was arrested on charges of corruption.

Anyone who comes to power and is faced with the opportunity of providing a secure future for their offspring even if it means doing so in a dishonest manner at the cost of robbing the offspring of ordinary people, will almost always succumb to committing this kind of crime. However, it is true that there are countries in the world where corruption exists at a very low level whilst in other countries, the power vertical is clearly corrupt through and through.

Evidently, it’s not all down to the gene preservation which works in the same manner the world over. So is it down to people’s freedom of choice? That is exactly it!

The percentage of the population that actively manifests freedom of choice, otherwise called ‘civil society’ defines the position of a country on the time axis; it defines the country’s level of democratic development, and finally, it defines the intensity of the nation’s struggle against corruption.

Based on Freedom House estimates the percentage of ‘civil society’ fluctuating between 25-35% in the developed countries of the West thanks to the free press and independent justice system, between 2-5% in the majority of post-Soviet countries, and being almost equal to zero in totalitarian states.

However, the scenario isn’t as gloomy as it first appears. As explained in “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer”, the freedom of choice, and consequently the percentage of ‘civil society’, will steadily increase on a global scale, as indeed we see happening from a historical perspective. Such tendency towards ‘civil society’ is also accelerated by an increasing access to internet throughout the world and easier access to knowledge and education for both men and women.

Xenophobia, as a primordial instinct, arose with the appearance of living beings on Earth as a natural response to the threat posed by other species, and even members of the same species who belonged to external groups. We have all witnessed one to three years old children crying when they are approached by a stranger.

The phenomena of racism, nationalism and patriotism exist among humans as a result of the kind of xenophobia that existed when primitive humans, gregarious by nature, could only survive and Preserve their Gene with members of their own tribe existing on the same habitat, considered the homeland.

Exactly the same phenomenon can be observed in the animal kingdom only then we use different terms to describe it. This same behaviour can be clearly observed in a pack of wolves for example, who will fight other wolf packs as ferociously as other species of animal such as bear.

Unlike xenophobia, neither racism, nationalism nor patriotism can be said to be biologically inherent in human beings. Take children’s pre-school groups for example. Children of different races will play together without it ever occurring to them that they are in some way different from their play-pals. All racial prejudices are adopted from by the child from their parents as they get older, who in turn adopted the prejudices from their own parents etc, going back to the era of race wars.

Aside from ethnic racism, other forms of discrimination exist in the world against religion, gender and class. Why do these forms of discrimination continue to existence in modern society?

The answer is simple – apartheid. Wherever schools exist in which children are separated into groups on account of race, religion, sex or class, discrimination in all its forms will continue to exist. The adoption of desegregation laws in the USA more than half a century ago represented a significant step forward in achieving the eradication of ethnic racism in America. On the territory of the former Soviet Union class racism, proclaimed by Marxism-Leninism that asserted the superiority of the proletarian class, receded into oblivion together with the Communist regime that fostered the ideology.

Whereas racism born of xenophobia is condemned throughout the world and nationalism disapproved of, patriotism is universally encouraged.

Yet even this tendency is changing. In united Europe attempts are clearly being made to foster in children a feeling of pan-European patriotism in place of an ethnic, state-based patriotism.

There is every reason to suppose that the consequences of xenophobia will be mitigated by examples of rapprochement between nations and increasing globalisation as all these developments are accompanied by an increase in global Freedom of Choice driven by the Law of Humandynamics.

We often hear natural male polygamy and female monogamy being referred to in the context of scientific fact. This myth, which has no biological foundation at all, was thought up by men back in the day of patriarchy and continues to be supported by men for obvious reasons. No species whose breeding strategy differs among its male and female representatives can ever survive! Nature has no examples of a species in which the males are polygamous and the females monogamous or vice verse. Either both sexes are polygamous or both are monogamous. Contrary to widespread assumptions, all ‘harem-forming’ species are totally polygamous i.e. polygamy is evident in both the males and the females. When a lioness is on heat, she will mate with any other male in the absence of the harem leader. The opposite example can be seen among wolves, swans and some other animals, where both male and female are monogamous.

The human species is decidedly polygamous. In modern society, both men and women tend to have more than 5 sexual partners throughout their lifetime and more than 40% have children with different sexual partners. Biologically speaking, men and women are completely equal and have similar rights to gene preservation.

Throughout the history of humankind, we as a species have adopted various types of mating systems depending on environmental and demographic circumstances: polygyny, polyandry, polyamory, monogamy. It should be noted that in every circumstance both men and women stuck to the same mating system and were equally maximising their chances of gene preservation.

The immediate question that comes to mind is how we ended up with a prevalence of monogamous marriage? The answer is simple. Monogamous marriage maximises the chances of gene preservation for both men and women in civilised society.

Humans are the most advanced social animals with the largest brain size in relation to the body. Our babies are born relatively undeveloped and weak compared to other mammals and require the longest fostering period (among all animals) before they are mature enough to take care of themselves and pass on their own genes.

With the development of civilisation and the increasing complexity of society, the fostering period we give our children has also grown. If previously 12-14 year-olds were working or protecting their tribe on an equal footing with their parents, nowadays maturity and independence come in a young person’s early 20s upon graduation from university.

Monogamous marriage maximises a child’s chances to successfully reach the necessary maturity and level of social development required to find a partner and pass on their genes to the next generation.

It should, however, be noted, that monogamous marriage in its strictest sense is a very rare occasion among both humans and animals. In reality, the majority of partners stick to social monogamy while remaining sexually polygamous, both in males and females equally.

Some may claim that men are more prone to adultery than women, but every sexual relationship a man develops outside of marriage usually involves an equally ‘adulterous’ woman.

The personality of the leader and conqueror, Genghis Khan, is something that continues to intrigue historians to this day. All the major events related to Genghis Khan’s life and empire, when, how and in what order he carried out his many conquests, have been exceedingly well-researched. An abundance of ancient Uighur, Arab, Middle Asian, Persian and particularly Chinese written documents exists which describe these events in some detail. But that was the thirteenth century!

Historians today tussle over the issue of the ethnicity of the khagan and his descendants. In the vast expanse of the Russian Internet, you will find many different types of articles on Genghis Khan. Some are written in the traditional style of Russian historiography and describe the catastrophic “Tatar-Mongol” invasion which destroyed much of the nation and saw the onset of the almost three-hundred-year Mongol Yoke, responsible for holding Russia back for centuries. Others vary in theme ranging from claims that the invasion was a fake to the life of Genghis Khan and his grandson Batuhan, to the Russian princes and the period of their reign described as being one of great prosperity for Russia.

Often the authors of such articles make reference to portraits painted by Europeans which they themselves have never seen. I remember seeing portraits and sculptures in Central Asian, Caucasian and Slavic style, depicting Vladimir Lenin with the same ethnic features as the artists and sculptors who created them. That’s not to mention those who left to conquer China, Central Asia, Caucasia, Misr (Egypt), Syria and Persia.

Kazakh historians claim rights to Genghis Khan referring to the “concrete” argument of the khan’s tribal affiliation. Apparently, the khan, along with his entourage and entire army (which according to Chinese sources consisted entirely of representatives of the clans and tribes which survive to this day in the Middle and Senior “zhuz” (Kazakh tribal divisions) belonged to a uniquely kazakh tribe of direct Genghizid-Tore descendants. Naturally, the Mongolian people, who share the same name as the invasion, cannot but claim affiliation to Genghis Khan. That said, their historians have not yet been able to successfully respond to their opponents’ argument that the term “Mongol” did not exist prior to the birth of Genghis Khan and was invented by him personally. The historians of many nations that may or may not once have been part of the Mongol Empire claim relatedness to Genghis Khan. Among them, the most surprising is perhaps the Japanese claim.

I don’t intend to get caught up in the arguments of professional historians, however. My goal is simply to provide answers, as far as that is possible, to my childhood questions: ‘Why?’ and ‘How?’.

How were Genghis Khan and his descendants able to create the largest empire in the history of mankind in just fifty years, even though they started with nothing?

Why is it, that despite the fact that there are documented incidents in which whole towns and their inhabitants were annihilated, the conquered peoples were generally willing to accept Genghis Khan’s rule and lived peacefully within the Mongol Empire right up until its decline?

Why did the Mongol Empire rule for less than three centuries before disintegrating and finally disappearing when historical records show no significant attack either from external enemies or local uprisings? Why did a similar historical scenario repeat itself seven centuries later in the same geographic area in the form of the Soviet Union, which existed for just 70 years before its own decline?

With rare exceptions, why have none of the peoples inhabiting the areas of the former Mongol Empire achieved the democratic gains of Western countries, despite the fact that some of them have survived civilisations of the past that were in their time more sophisticated than the contemporary civilisation of Europe.

First of all, it is worth remembering which historical time and circumstances surrounded the formation of the identity of the legendary conqueror, Genghis Khan. It was a time when in most of Eurasia, ferocious war was ongoing aimed only at destruction. Everyone was at war with everyone else. Extensive farming methods dictated the need for new pasture and arable lands. War raged not only between nations but between tribes and kin. The Chinese Three Kingdoms were fighting amongst themselves, as well as dozens of individual principalities of Rus’, all the proto-Kazakh tribes and everyone else as well… There was all-out human destruction throughout the vast territory of Eurasia. It was as if every human being believed that the only way to preserve their own gene was to annihilate that of their neighbour.

Ironically, the greatest earthly crime against the Law of Gene Preservation was committed in its name. Someone had to put an end to the bloody feast and history saw fit to call on Genghis Khan.

The young Genghis Khan, at that time still called Temujin, lost his father and all his senior male relatives to war and ended up a head of his family line when he was still a child. The young Genghis Khan had the sole aim of putting an end to the constant conflict, at least in his immediate environment, in order to save his family and prevent his genes from being totally wiped out. Displaying the remarkable abilities of warrior, diplomat and organiser, he quickly achieved his goal by uniting the free herders of clans close to his own and subjecting to his rule neighbouring tribes and their lands. However, fearing imminent clashes with new and more powerful distant neighbours, he had no choice but to continue running campaigns against them. From then on things developed according to the internal logic characteristic of all imperial conquests, revolutions and wars, which ultimately takes control of their leaders, sometimes even against their will.

Once an army of shepherds, who have since forgotten their nomadic livelihood, becomes a professional military force, growing in number, it has to be fed and given a share of the spoils of war. To maintain the army, the empire is forced to continually expand. So then followed the conquering of the Kingdoms of China, the Central Asian khanates, the Russian principalities and later, the countries of the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

The first question that must be answered is how Genghis Khan was able to conquer such enormous territories with a population ten times, if not hundreds of times larger than that of the Turkic-Mongol tribes that followed him? Military professionalism and the fearlessness and valour of the steppe nomads could not have been sufficient. We know that Genghis Khan’s army was able to resist the well-equipped professional armies of local kings, princes and khans, but why has history left almost no trace of widespread popular resistance to the foreign invader? The only exception might be the battle of the Kalka River, where the Western proto-Kazakh tribes and the Russian princes and their ‘druzhinas’ attempted to resist two ‘tumen’ of Jebe and Subutai the Valiant, which consisted mainly of members of the tribes of the Eastern proto-Kazakhs.

I am convinced that the main “secret” of Genghis Khan’s victories and his success in maintaining peace with his conquered peoples lay in the style of governance that his administration applied on occupied territory.

Marco Polo writes: “Conquering an area, he did not punish the population or violate their property rights. He simply instated a few of his own men among them, and then left with the rest for further conquests in distant lands. And when the people of the conquered land realised that he would protect them from all their neighbours and that they suffered no evil under his rule, and when they saw his generosity as emperor, they became loyal to him in body and soul, and went from former enemy to faithful servant.”

For example, during the period of the Tatar Yoke not one church was destroyed in Rus’. On the contrary, thousands of churches and hundreds of monasteries were built. I should add, that the Mongols refrained from interfering in the way of life of their conquered peoples as a matter of principle. Neither did they interfere in the economy, religion or rites and customs of these peoples. They levied a reasonable tax of ten percent on all types of income and took upon themselves the responsibility of protecting the perimeters of the territory from external threat. It has to be said that the Tatar-Mongols fulfilled their obligation quite conscientiously, one example being the well-known battle at Chudsk Lake against the German knights. The protection of the perimeter was not only a matter of guarding borders; it meant staunch isolation of the peoples of the empire from any external relations and was a method borrowed by local kings and khans and again later under Communist regimes.

As a result, the peoples of the Mongol Empire were virtually cut off from the developing outside world for eight centuries right up until the end of the twentieth century. Any sign of internecine feud was punishable by death. This was not for the sake of the conquered peoples of course, but for the sake of peaceful rule and tax collection. With the same aim of streamlining the taxation system, the Mongols built roads and initiated the postal service. They basically pioneered the process of forcibly globalising conquered peoples by administratively uniting disparate concentrations of single ethnic groups. They laid the foundation for the creation of powerful future states, such as the unified state of China formed from the Three Kingdoms and a unified Russia, from dozens of autonomous principalities. This fact was openly acknowledged by the grateful Chinese in the creation of their seventeen-part serial film “Genghis Khan”.

Expressed in the language of “The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer”, the Mongols created the ideal conditions for the realisation of the Law of Gene Preservation for the empire’s entire population, which had not existed under the previous rule of tzars, khans and princes. In my opinion, this explains the lack of serious popular revolt against the Tatar Yoke, a fact to which other historians have paid relatively little attention. There is evidence to show, that during the relatively calm and peaceful period of the Tatar Yoke, the Russian and Chinese ethnoses who came under the protection of the Mongol army, increased in size transforming later into the continental ‘superethnoses’.

Although the Western and Eastern proto-Kazakh tribes clashed tragically once again after the battle on the Kalka River near Ain-Zhalta (now Israel) in the armies of the Egyptian Mamluks and the Mongolian troops, it was nonetheless, during the reign of the Mongol Empire that their rapprochement began, a rapprochement that should have culminated in the formation of a single Kazakh ethnos after the collapse of the Empire.

The slogan the leaders of the Mongol Empire gave to their people sounded thus: “Be fruitful, multiply, work, pay the tithe and don’t meddle in things that don’t concern you!”. It is basically a slogan that is still used to this day.

With regard to Freedom of Choice, levels of personal freedom were low even among the conquerors. The individual need for Freedom of Choice was generally low during this historical period. It was the traders and merchants who were realistically able to expand their Freedom of Choice. The merchants were permitted to move freely, and most importantly, safely with their goods throughout the entire gigantic territory of the Mongol Empire. Having banned the people from building armies and administrative systems based on the principles of familial kinship and ethnic affinity, Genghis Khan made the inhabitants of the empire equal in their civil rights. Each individual had equal opportunity to advance their career within the empire’s own social and political structures. In other words, he gave equal rights to Freedom of Choice, albeit at a very limited level and this undoubtedly facilitated the strengthening of the Empire.

In fairness, similar reforms were made in all “successful” empires both prior to the Mongol Empire and subsequently. At least, this was the case in the Roman, Napoleonic and Ottoman empires. In contrast, empires that have tried to found their power on the principles of giving precedence to one particular group, such as the racial principle in the case of the German Nazi’s, and the class principle in the case of the Soviet Communist’s, have all met an early death. Whereas the German Empire, in which a person was physically incapable of overcoming the racial barrier, lasted for just twelve years, the Soviet empire, lasted for seventy due to the fact that it gave its more unprincipled members the opportunity to “change” their class nature and “accept” the Communist ideology.

In all fairness, there was one act that mitigated the very low levels of Freedom of Choice in the Soviet Empire which extended the period of its existence, and that is the fact that education was universally accessible to all.

So why did the Mongol Empire collapse? The answer lies, once again, in the nature of the two laws: Gene Preservation and Freedom of Choice, or rather, in their contradiction.

Time passed, aggressive territorial campaigns were brought to an end and life began to adopt a more peaceful course. The Mongolian elite on the ground, who were granted unlimited power, became maddened by the endless possibilities of huge Freedom of Choice. Driven by the Gene Preservation instinct, they embraced the compulsion for unlimited wealth and increased personal power, naively believing that they could keep their riches for eternity, leaving it all to their descendants. Where are they today, the descendants of that elite and their wealth?

Blinded by power and looting, not only negating the general moral principles that had developed by that time, but also rejecting the direct admonitions of Genghis Khan’s ‘Great Yasa’, his descendants began a relentless fratricidal war. In the madness of the greed for personal wealth, even Genghis Khan’s original purpose was forgotten: the accumulation of wealth for the sake of posterity, in other words, for the sake of fulfilling the Law of Gene Preservation. Explicit and implicit father-child-brother and son-in-law killings became common in the courts of crown princes throughout the empire. Is not a similar scenario taking place today among the presidential families who inhabit the former lands of the Mongol Empire?

The collapse of the Empire became inevitable. The strict power vertical created by Genghis Khan, the likes of which, had never been seen before, finally crumbled and other independent state formations appeared in its place. Palace coups were also plotted, as a result of which, power fell to the hands not only of the Chingizids, as was the case in Central Asia, but also to representatives of the comprador elite, such as those who ruled in Russia and China, who had previously served the Mongolian authorities in collecting taxes and controlling the population. Whatever their original status, all who claimed the title of king, khan and emperor, installed a totalitarian form of government in the Mongol Empire, and immediately set about building local power verticals in the style of Genghis Khan but which were much more ferocious in relation to the local community and their neighbours. At the same time, the law of serfdom was finally being written and consolidated in Rus’. The new rulers continued to mercilessly rob and oppress their own people, who, never having tasted Freedom of Choice, took it all without so much as a murmur. The spirit of slavery created by the Mongols stuck for centuries.

It is hardly surprising then, that five hundreds years later, the communist dictators who came to power throughout the lands of the former Mongol Empire chose the same totalitarian (or at best authoritarian) ideology and form of government, and displayed the same predatory and contemptuous attitude towards their people. In the Soviet Union, which took seventy years to accept the total inefficiency of the communist economy, the leaders of socialism, continued to take a firm grip on power and backtracking, installed in their countries equally inefficient principles of oligarchic, state-directed capitalism.

According to the Law of Humandynamics, the level of Freedom of Choice in the world is increasing. Is the law is effective though on the territories of the former Mongol Empire? Yes! I have total confidence that it is. It might be slow, creeping along with creaks and groans, but it is working. One hundred and fifty years have passed since the abolition of serfdom. We no longer see the communist kolkhoz and Sovkhoz state farms that brought with them Holodomor that took the lives of millions. The Marxist-Leninist ideology no longer lives to justify the annihilation of millions of innocent people. Among other rights that have appeared since those times, we now have a right to own property, to leave the country and to re-enter it when we choose. So, yes, there is evidence that the Law of Humandynamics is effective in lands of the former Mongol Empire.

Can one also say, that the peoples who inhabit the former territory of the Mongol Empire today are free? With the exception of South Korea, absolutely not! There is no genuine freedom of speech or freedom of the press in these areas of the world. These states have no independent electoral courts, no free elections and in a word, no Freedom of Choice. The ruling elite, continues to educate its population in an authoritarian and paternalistic spirit, intimidating them with the threat of what the outside world would do to them if it weren’t for the “father of the nation” – their only real support in an uncertain and ever-changing world. Even the Russian saying, ‘the sheep led by a lion is stronger than lions led by a sheep’, has been hammered into our heads since those times.

The ruling elite will always strive for wealth without limits. They will always push to consolidate and expand their position of power, in other words, their own Freedom of Choice. It would be foolish to think that one could appeal to the conscience of the elite and request that they moderate their appetites. The elite will never take the initiative to change this pattern. It will continue to focus on increasing its own wealth at any cost, like fermenting bacteria continue to absorb sugar from grape juice, transforming it into alcohol until there is no sugar left and the concentration of alcohol destroys it completely. It is more efficacious to remind the rest of society that they are justified in protecting their two sacrosanct rights to Gene Preservation and Freedom of Choice.

The behaviour of the elite is just as natural as a business that strives to expand, merge and swallow up other businesses. In democratic societies, people have learned to oppose this tendency by creating anti-monopoly laws and multi-party systems, in other words, by creating and protecting Freedom of Choice. I will never forget times in the Soviet Union when the sum total of the Freedom of Choice Communist leaders granted to the people was the right to choose between drinking vodka in the kitchen or watching football on television.

The more that freedoms are usurped by the elite and denied to the rest of society, and the lower the general level of Freedom of Choice among a people, the deeper corruption will go and the quicker (peacefully or otherwise) the Law of Humandynamics will kick in, obliged as it is to raise the level of Freedom of Choice in society as a whole.

Brexit, Trump and Burkinis.

To conclude, it is worth considering two minor fluctuations in Freedom of Choice that have taken place recently in countries with high levels of Freedom of Choice: Brexit in Great Britain and the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States.

In Britain and America, the fluctuations occurred due to the choices made by the less educated portion of the population, mainly living in provincial areas – roughly half the country’s population. The establishment and more progressive portion of the population, who mainly live in large cities and who have enjoyed more Freedom of Choice thanks to the technological revolution of recent decades, “forgot” about those who have been left out of the process and were quite taken back by the results of the elections in the USA and Britain’s referendum. The vote of the more ‘backward’ portion of the population was more a vote of protest that a vote explicitly in favour of Brexit or Trump.

As a result of Brexit, Britain is already anticipating a drop in Freedom of Choice among large and medium-sized businesses since the free marketing of their products throughout Europe will become limited. British pensioners will no longer enjoy the free and affordable choice of residence on the warm seashores of France, Spain and Italy that they had before. And British youth will be much more limited in their choice of university in Europe. As it is not clear how those who did vote for Brexit will experience more Freedom of Choice, one can only expect resistance towards Brexit to increase.

When, earlier this year, local authorities imposed a ban on wearing a burkini in some French départements, I predicted that it could not hold. The Freedom of Choice of French Muslim women did indeed drop, but the ban did not lead to an increase in Freedom of Choice for any other portion of the French population. Consequently, the overall level of Freedom of Choice in France fell and the ban on burkinis quietly disappeared into history as an example of the stupidity of local officials. Similarly, it is difficult to see exactly how Freedom of Choice can increase for the portion of the British population, who voted in favour of Brexit, except perhaps for those who live by outmoded slogans of independence. I have no doubt that the British establishment is secretly wishing that they could ‘quietly forget’ about the referendum just as officials quietly forgot about the burkini ban in France.

The potential consequences of Trump’s election in America are less obvious. If he does actually implement the promises he made in the run-up to the election, then Freedom of Choice in America will fall for a huge army of Afro-Americans, Muslims and immigrants. Women will feel the effects as well. On the other hand, if Trump succeeds in significantly and quickly reducing levels of unemployment and raising the economy through tax cuts, which in turn leads to a higher standard of living (in other words, if he increases opportunities for Gene Preservation among the majority of the population) then anti-Trump protestors may well calm down temporarily. If however, those who voted for Trump don’t feel any personal growth in Freedom of Choice that would promise increased living standards, then the protests will be revived on a national level.

As we can see, whatever the time, whatever the place, measures that increase Freedom of Choice for anything less than the majority of the population lead to revolutionary change. Those changes may be peaceful if, as in democratic countries, they come as a result of referendums and elections. Change that occurs in countries where the population does not have political freedom may, on the other hand, be catastrophic.

In the 21st conversation, when I am talking about the history of the emergence of natural numbers, I put forward the supposition, that before the appearance of natural numbers, early humans used different methods for counting different kinds of objects.

Just the other day, a fellow mathematician told me that he once read an ethnographic article about a primitive tribe living in the Amazon jungle still isolated from the outside world. Apparently, at the time the article was written, the tribe in question still weren’t using natural numbers. They had different counting systems in everyday use, one system for counting oblong shaped objects and another for counting round objects.

A slight fluctuation in levels of Freedom of Choice has occurred in an area of France and levels have evidently fallen! They may only have fallen very slightly, but they have fallen nonetheless. Fundamental principles won by the great French revolutions have been affected.

There is nothing more foolish than to perceive the burkini as a symbol of extremism as some French politicians are doing. Their statements that burkinis contradict French cultural norms are even more ridiculous. They obviously have little knowledge of the recent history of their own and other nations. If they were to look at the European bathing suits in photographs and movies a century old, they would see that the Frenchwoman of that era wore swimwear that were as little revealing as burkinis are today.

Imagine the police of countries such as Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco forcing the European bathers who enjoy their beaches to wear a burkini above their bikini justifying the move with the demands of the Arab culture. How would French politicians like Nicolas Sarkozy respond I wonder?

Fortunately, there are other politicians in France, and most importantly, France has a civil society which will not allow its politicians, on the pretext of fighting extremism, to deprive it of the personal rights and freedoms that were won at such a high price by the great bourgeois revolutions. The reaction of the Supreme Court of France, which has lifted the ban on burkinis, was not long in the offing and certainly, this particular fluctuation will soon disappear without trace, of this there is no doubt. The Law of Humandynamics will not be hindered!

As the unforgettable Marx-Engels historical materialism which I was taught at Soviet school explains, the cause of socio-economic revolution lies in disparity between the development of productive forces and existing relations of production. Totally agreeing with Marx and Engels on the subject of socio-economic revolution, let us ask ourselves the following questions: “What are the reasons for scientific-technical revolutions, which no less powerfully shake society and transfer it to a new level of social progress, for example, in the case of the latest digital revolution? What of revolutions in the arts, and the anti-racist and anti-colonial revolutions of the second half of the twentieth century? What about the feminist revolution that spread successfully throughout the Western world significantly changing the face of western society in the first half of the twentieth century? What about the gay revolution that is surging now in Europe and North America?”

One can hardly talk of productive forces and relations in production in the context of these revolutions. So what changes essentially as a result of these types of revolution, as well as socio-economic revolution? Is there one main cause common to them all?

It turns out, that there is! The reason lies in the disparity between levels of Freedom of Choice in society with regard to the various issues that relate to its requirement.

Following the ‘Law of Humandynamics’, the total amount of Freedom of Choice in human society can only grow, even taking account of the fact that in certain periods levels of growth will freeze and even allowing for short periods of fluctuation in restricted areas. The growth of Freedom of Choice itself follows an uneven path. For significant periods of time, the growth rate in Freedom of Choice may develop smoothly, and then suddenly, be subject briefly to spasmodic growth, which breaks through existing obstacles. This rapid change is what we call revolution. As a result of all the types of revolution listed above, Freedom of Choice jumps abruptly to a new level, and this is true whether it be in the sphere of relations of production, relationships between the sexes, attitudes towards small states, racial and sexual minorities, interpretation of new art forms or in the newly expanded framework of science.